Actions to meet goal

Improve
firefighting capability/readiness to protect communities and the environment

Reduce
incidence of injury to life and property resulting from catastrophic
wildland fire

Expand
outreach and education to homeowners

Develop
a consistent preparedness model among partners

Wildfire Suppression Response

When a fire occurs, a call will come into the
BLM/USFS Grand
Junction Regional Communications Center and they will dispatch
to the appropriate agency. The Communications Center determines
whether the fire is on public or private land. If it is on BLM or
USFS land, the Mesa
County Sheriff's Office Fire Team or fire districts may respond
to assist in initial attack if there is confusion about the jurisdictional
boundary of the fire. Once the jurisdiction is confirmed, Mesa County
will continue to support the fire or be called off depending on
the situation. A Type III incident team would be called in if the
fire became too large for county resources to handle. A Type II
team would be called in if all the local resources were insufficient.
CSFS makes the call as to whether the fire qualifies for Emergency
Fire Funds (EFF). An EFF declared incident does not have to have
a Type II or I team called. There is no set mechanism that would
require a Type II team, but the complexity dictates that a Type
II team is needed in most situations. The Annual Operating Plan
lays out how to order air resources, who has suppression responsibility,
and how everything should take place in case of a wildfire.

In case of a fire, the Mesa County Communications
Center has an Emergency Preparedness Network (EPN) that can telephone
schools, businesses and homes. This is a reverse 911 system that
can call up to 2,000 calls a minute and will call back up to three
times to make sure the message gets through. The system cost $50,000
to install and also entails a monthly fee to maintain the database.
The money for the network comes from the $.70 911 surcharge on all
county residents' cellular and landline phone bills. The Communications
Center sends out daily sheets about resources that are committed
and where they are committed during fire season.

The sheriff's office and fire warden have great
relationship with all players, especially the federal agencies.
Planning and building relationships have been two of Anderson's
foci as county fire warden. Others recognize the fruits of this
relationships building. "We have probably one of the best relationships
in the state with the federal agencies" said the county Emergency
Manager . The county coordinates very well with the USFS/BLM Grand
Junction Regional Communications Center. Anderson has tried to work
with federal agencies and local fire districts to help cover the
unusually large amount of land for which the sheriff's office is
responsible.

USFS and BLM Suppression Efforts

The upper elevation regions in Mesa County
are under the control of USFS, while the lower elevation lands are
under the control of BLM and the county sheriff. The two agencies'
jurisdictions are highly commingled.

BLM
and USFS
operate as an interagency fire management unit. BLM has six full
or part time fuels crews made up of both USFS and BLM employees.
USFS has no wildfire suppression capacity in the area so BLM is
responsible for wildfire suppression on USFS lands. National Park
Service is responsible for their land, but they have limited staff
for fire work. BLM has a mutual aid agreement with NPS if a fire
breaks out on the National Monument to respond and provide them
with suppression resources. BLM also has a 24-hour mutual aid non-billing
agreement with the county and other entities in the county. If a
fire is close to BLM land and it is unclear under whose jurisdiction
it falls, BLM will respond and not charge if it turns out to be
on county land. Similarly, the county and fire department resources
reciprocate. BLM hosts a number of wildfire courses that are open
to any of the local fire department volunteers or employees. These
include S-130, S-190, basic fire crew boss, engine boss, engine
operator, intermediate fire behavior and medical unit leader classes.
CSFS coordinates two statewide fire academies that attract and train
hundreds of federal and private firefighters every year. BLM also
has a part time fire prevention tech that does some education and
outreach in the summer. BLM meets every two weeks with the County
Fire Warden to keep up communication.

Wildfire Response in Mesa County

County Sheriff's Role

By
statute, the sheriff is in charge of forest and prairie fires on
all lands. This law, passed in 1903, predates the USFS, BLM and
any concept of a taxing district or even income taxes. Originally
it included all of what are now federal lands. Since the establishment
of federal lands and fire protection districts, lands with their
own fire protection funding are considered to be excluded from this
law. Now the sheriff serves in a coordinating role in many counties,
assisting fire departments in getting the manpower, equipment and
funding for fires that exceed their capability. If a wildfire occurs
within an existing fire district, then that fire department is responsible
for the first response. If a wildfire occurs outside of a fire district,
then the sheriff's office responds. Mesa County is unique because
a greater portion of the population resides outside of covered fire
districts than in most places. The past two sheriffs have taken
their wildfire role very seriously and so Mesa County is seen as
more responsive than some other counties. In Mesa County, they have
a designated fire warden and developed their own fire response unit
to coordinate fire response on private lands.

The Mesa County Sheriff's Office Fire Team is
run by Lt. John Anderson, the County Fire Warden. Anderson oversees
his own internal fire team and also the other county employees who
volunteer to fight fire. They have three fire engines and two support
vehicles at their disposal. In addition to coordinating his own
fire response team, Anderson is credited with increasing the professionalism
of the volunteer fire departments throughout the county. Anderson
has made a push to get many volunteers red carded and cross trained
in 130 and 190 fire behavior and firefighter training classes and
now about 75% are red carded. Every year the county budgets $10,000
to send members to the Colorado Wildfire Academy. Working with CSFS,
Anderson applies for Rural Fire Assistance (RFA, from the BLM) and
Volunteer Fire Assistance (VFA, from CSFS) cost sharing assistance
every year and the fire departments rely heavily on that money for
equipment.

The volunteer fire departments fall under
the jurisdiction of the sheriff, because they are not recognized
local governments. The county underwrites $4,000 per year for insurance
for volunteer fire departments, because when a wildfire occurs they
are working on behalf of the sheriff. There are great pressures
on the local and volunteer fire departments. They have to be qualified
for four things. They have to have state certification for different
categories of Emergency Management Service, hazardous material management,
structural firefighting National Fire Protection Association qualifications,
and National Wildfire Coordinating Group wildfire qualifications.
Wildfire is a small percentage of what they do. Additional burdens
have been put on fire departments with the Homeland Security Act.

Mesa County Office of Emergency Management

Kimberly Parker-Bullen is the County Emergency
Manager and her main duties for the county include disaster planning.
Parker-Bullen has a wildfire background which makes her more attuned
to wildfire risk than other emergency mangers. She works closely
with the sheriff's office and the Fire Warden, who has responsibility
for fire on private property in Mesa County.

Mesa County Emergency Management works with American
Red Cross on Firewise community meetings and projects and identifies
areas of homeowners to target. They have not undertaken any fuel
reduction on their own. "The American Red Cross has been going
out and doing the community meetings and doing the Firewise program
for us that's primarily due to just manpower and time".
The County OEM now is trying to identify areas in the county that
coincide with USFS and BLM properties where they can work with adjacent
homeowners. These would be high priority areas for joint private
and federal land coordinated fuels treatment.

Mesa County Fire Planning

Under encouragement from the BLM, Mesa County
is now in the process of developing a fire plan. CSFS has
been contracted by the County Office of Emergency Management
to create a county fire management plan that details Mesa
County's policy on fire management for prescribed burns, fuels
management and natural ignition burns on lands owned by the
state or county. The BLM is paying for the creation of the
plan to assist them in their burn policies. The goal by the
federal agencies is to allow wildfire to resume its natural
role as a landscape modifying force when possible. The plan
uses the polygon approach to categorize areas for suppression
activity. There are four classifications of polygons. A-polygons
are areas where wildland fire is highly undesirable. B polygons
are areas where wildland fire is undesirable under current
conditions. Fire prevention and suppression efforts will be
aggressive in A and B areas. C-polygons are areas where wildland
fire is acceptable and often desirable. D-polygons are areas
where wildland fire is acceptable or desirable and where the
potential for damage is insignificant. However, since Mesa
County does not have the manpower, training, equipment, or
funding for a "managed fire" program that their
federal land partners do, full suppression of wildland fires
on private and state lands will be the policy. The plan will
identify areas of private land where indirect suppression
may be considered as a suppression tactic. Phase 2 of the
planning process would go beyond the polygon classification,
in which CSFS will also include interagency agreements, annual
operating plans and mobilization plans, as well as a comprehensive
review of all state laws regarding wildfire and several scenarios
of escalating wildfire as "guidelines for interaction"
for the sheriff's department, but that has not yet happened.
Often the primary reason counties want a fire plan is so they
have the flexibility to manage fires, as opposed to having
only the option to suppress them, but that is not the case
in Mesa County. The sheriff's office doesn't have the resources
to manage wildland or prairie fires and will continue with
full suppression policies. The criteria for Mesa County is
safety and cost saving rather than resource benefit. At this
stage, the county fire plan will mainly be a tool for BLM's
burn policies, and a guide for where the highest hazard and
highest value private lands are in the urban interface. Phase
2 would extend beyond suppression into mitigation planning.

In Colorado, the county sheriff has a statutory
responsibility (CRS 30-10-513) for the suppression of "forest
and prairie" fires on private and state lands. However,
fire departments and fire protection districts tax for suppression
and have suppression capability. In 2000, private land grazing
interests passed a law that allows the sheriff to manage or
suppress wildfires, if the county has fire management plan.
In other words, sheriffs no longer had a statutory responsibility
only to suppress fires if there is a plan in place that categorizes
how fire can burn in the county. Federal land management agencies
have allowed wildfire to play its function as a natural force
in vegetation management on their lands. The change in the
Colorado law was thought particularly useful for fires that
originate on federal land and cross onto private land, where
the landowner considers the fire to be a benefit to the vegetation.
However a problem arises in Mesa County, and others, due to
the inequity of funding for fire suppression and management
between federal, private and state lands. Federal land management
agencies do not have a restricted budget for fire suppression,
but counties and the state of Colorado are restricted. Moreover,
several liability issues complicate who would be responsible
for fires that escape, if they are allowed to burn. For these
reasons, CSFS in Mesa County recommends a full suppression
policy for wildfires on private and state lands. This approach
may be modified by using an indirect attack method. Direct
attack involves line building and other tactics such as aerially
applied water and retardant directly on the fire's edge. Indirect
attack uses natural or man-made fuel breaks or topographic
features to reinforce before the fire arrives. Direct attack
is more expensive and used when high value area are endangered.
Indirect attack can be used as a cost-conserving tactic.

American Red Cross Interagency Wildfire Mitigation Program

American
Red Cross works in partnership with CSFS, BLM, and USFS,
in Mesa County and surrounding western slope counties, to
deliver wildfire preparedness and hazard mitigation education
in Wildland Urban Interface neighborhoods. The program was
piloted in nearby counties. In October 2003, John Bear, ARC
Wildfire Mitigation Specialist, was successful in getting
a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the American
Red Cross, the National Fire Protection Association and Wildland
Fire Management Agencies. This MOU created a formal partnership
to educate homeowners and others who reside in the WUI to
assume a greater personal responsibility and not to rely entirely
upon emergency response organizations. Through its network
of nationwide local chapters, the ARC, in coordination with
various wildland fire management agencies, will deliver community-based
education programs that are designed to reduce the impacts
of wildland fire on private lands.

The development of the national program
came about through trial and error learning in Delta and Montrose
Counties, which neighbor Mesa County. Education materials
were developed in spring 2001 with $18,000 in funding from
the BLM under the encouragement of Red Cross national. The
work is through existing Red Cross volunteer networks to get
the word out, do trainings and in some cases, help do actual
home assessments and thinning work. Working with the homeowners
is key and learning how to deal with potential negative reactions
has been a large part of the training. The prevailing attitude
within most communities they work with is denial or an inability
to recognize the problem. The other prevalent attitude is,
"I moved into the forest for the forest, not my house,
I don't care if my house burns". In these cases, ARC
is trying to emphasize forest health. "The axiom that
we use is, 'I used to look at the forest, now I look into
it, from my house'. And it's interesting, I thought I had
seven wild turkeys, I found out now I have thirty. I thought
I had three deer, I found out I have thirteen. It's much better
that I'm looking into the forest rather than at it, from my
house.".

ARC does the training, assessments working
with local fire departments and CSFS. In Colorado, Red Cross
works under the supervision of the Colorado State Forest Service
to do wildfire mitigation education. CSFS gave Red Cross $7,000
for educational material in FY 2001. Red Cross and Rural Fire
Department volunteers wishing to help assess wildfire threat
to property and help landowners identify mitigation opportunities
are trained by the Colorado State Forest Service and Red Cross
with assistance from the federal agencies.

On a more local scale, ARC is making headway
in Mesa and the surrounding counties due to the hiring of
John Bear to oversee education and outreach efforts. John
Bear is the Emergency Services Director for the Western chapter
of the ARC, which covers a ten county region. Part of his
salary is funded through BLM to address wildfire mitigation
issues. Bear works mainly through CSFS or local volunteer
or fire protection districts. While the ARC program is aimed
at a variety of activities, Bear says, "My primary role
is to educate the homeowner." Bear has been trained on
how to do assessments for defensible space and how to work
effectively with the community through the ARC program. Glade
Park, Gateway, and Plateau Valley have been the areas of emphasis
in Mesa County. The work in Mesa County is just getting started.
They haven't been as active as some of the surrounding counties,
like Delta and Montrose where this program was piloted. Now
that Bear has funding from the BLM to do the wildfire mitigation
work, he will be freer to pursue work in Mesa County.